Long term evolution (“LTE”) of the Third Generation Partnership Project (“3GPP”), also referred to as 3GPP LTE, refers to research and development as part of an ongoing effort across the industry aimed at identifying technologies and capabilities that can improve systems such as the universal mobile telecommunication system (“UMTS”). The goals of this broadly based project include improving communication efficiency, lowering costs, improving services, making use of new spectrum opportunities, and achieving better integration with other open standards.
The evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (“E-UTRAN”) in 3GPP includes base stations providing user plane (including packet data convergence protocol/radio link control/medium access control/physical layers) and control plane (including radio resource control/packet data convergence protocol/radio link control/medium access control/physical layers) protocol terminations towards wireless communication devices such as cellular telephones. A wireless communication device or terminal is generally known as user equipment (“UE”). A base station (“BS”) is an entity or network element of a communication system or network often referred to as a Node B or an NB. Particularly in the E-UTRAN, an “evolved” base station is referred to as an eNodeB or an “eNB”.